CM Siddaramaiah, KPCC chief to finalise Congress candidates

To avoid any criticism over distribution of party tickets for the May 12 Assembly elections, the Congress high command has asked its Karnataka leaders to finalise the list of candidates themselves and send it to New Delhi just for a formal approval.

The Congress leadership has told Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president G Parameshwara to finalise tickets for all the seats in consultation with AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal and screening committee chairman Madhusudhan Mistry.

"The state unit has been told to send one name for each Assembly segment and the high command will approve it," said a leader from the party, adding that "whatever the dispute over the distributions of tickets, it should be solved at the state level itself."

Though more than 1,000 aspirants have applied for tickets in 224 Assembly segments, all the sitting Congress legislators and MLAs who migrated from other parties are likely to get the ticket. For the remaning seats, around 90, Siddaramaiah and Parameshwara will finalise the candidates, including children of some senior party leaders, said the leader.

The screening committee, headed by Mistry, is scheduled to meet in New Delhi on April 9 and 10 and send the list for final approval for the Central Election Committee (CEC) of the party. The CEC is likely to meet on April 11 or 12 to give its final approval. Though April 24 is the last date for filing nominations, most of the tickets will be finalised in second week of April. Candidates for the remaining seats may be announced in third week, he said.

Since the Congress left the seat selection to the state units in Gujarat and Punjab during the Assembly elections there, the party wants to follow the same norm in Karnataka too.